{"id":98819,"date":"2025-10-31T05:00:55","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T09:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=98819"},"modified":"2025-10-30T23:23:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T03:23:11","slug":"the-internet-of-shit-is-somehow-managing-to-get-even-shittier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2025\/10\/31\/the-internet-of-shit-is-somehow-managing-to-get-even-shittier\/","title":{"rendered":"The “internet of shit” is somehow managing to get even shittier"},"content":{"rendered":"

At The Honest Broker<\/em>, Ted Gioia<\/a> enumerates just a few of the ways that advertisers have abandoned attempts to persuade you and instead now run online extortion rackets to get you to pay to avoid<\/em> having to see their ads:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Advertising is no longer about creativity and storytelling. Ads are now a matter of annoyance, plain and simple (as I recently described in this article<\/a>).<\/p>\n

It’s a simple concept. Web platforms force people to pay money to avoid<\/em> the ads \u2014 so the more annoying they are, the more money they make.<\/p>\n

They used to call it extortion<\/em> \u2014 pay now to avoid pain later. And it always works like a charm. Needless to say you don’t need an English major to run an extortion business. (However, they do make good victims.)<\/p>\n

This business strategy started out in media \u2014 where it made some sense. People are familiar with the idea of advertising during screen entertainment.<\/p>\n

And here is how it played out:<\/p>\n